NATIVE LAND TRANSACTIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3099, 6 August 1913, Page 3

NATIVE LAND TRANSACTIONS.

j A DEFENDANT TAKEN TO TASK. AUCKLAND, July 23. i Mr C. C. Kettle, S.M., gave judgment to-day in a somewhat involved case. The plaintiff was Janies Meredith, farmer aijd postmaster, of Cabbage Bay, and the defendant A. A. Preece, Native agent at Paeroa and sometime Maori interpreter. The action was one to recover a memorandum of transfer (from several Natives to plaintiff), the signatures having been obtained b\ r Preece, who claimed that he had a lien over it in connection with certain work -done on it and in other ways by him for plaintiff. There was a counter claim for £33 16s 4d, alleged to be due to defendant for services rendered to Meredith in connection with two trans- . fers. The bearing had been a tedious matter, remarked the magistrate. He held that Preece iiad a lien on the transfer, but in the circumstances he was not going to allow costs. Judgment would be for defendant on the claim, without costs, and for defendant on the counter claim for the balance assessed, also without costs. The revised amount was £27 5s 6d. | Since the case had started, Mr Kettle ■ went on to say, the registrar of the Native Land Court had written to take exception to certain statements that had been made by Preece. Preece had said on oath that he had frequently paid search fees and had not signed tho search book or received any receipt whatever. Mr Kettle wished to say that ho did not accept that as a statement of fact. He understood that tiie Native Lands Office would call upon Preece to prove or withdraw tiie statements. There was another matter arising from the same case to which the magistrate referred pointedly. Defendant had admitted receiving a large number of receipts with signatures obtained by the Native agents and sent blank and without stamps. In one case lie had admitted dating May on a receipt fixed up in September. That sort of thing was wrong. Such a document might easily deceive the Land Court and cause i a gross injustice to he done. It was very I important tiiat there should bo no tampering with the documents, but that they should he truthful in their contents in OTcrv particular. Ho condemned the practice of ante-dating documents, and observed that it must be discontinued.